


View from the Top Bunk

by schweinsty



Category: Now You See Me (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 06:51:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8002573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schweinsty/pseuds/schweinsty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack has a possibly-imaginary injury. Daniel's in need of a haircut. Merritt wants to share his wisdom, but everyone keeps interrupting him.</p><p>None of this, of course, is due to Henley leaving them.</p><p>Set between the first & second movies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	View from the Top Bunk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brumeier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/gifts).



> Written for a comment on comment-fic over on livejournal.

“This, my friend, is karma.” Merritt's voice is steady, but he's laughing on the inside. Jack knows it, even if he can't see it, and it makes him want to jump out of bed and smack it off his face. “Karma.”

Jack groans. 

He's lying on the top bunk, like he has every morning this week since he beat Merritt at spoons. The mattress is softer, and it's nearer the air vent, and—look, it's the top bunk. Everyone knows the top bunk is better. Jack won it fair and square, and he has every intention of enjoying it. And he does. 

For the first six days. Wakes up every morning feeling snug and smug and refreshed, and he makes sure to tell Merritt all about it. Except this morning when he wakes up, intending to stretch his arms and move around so the springs squeak and yawn and bug the crap out of Merritt, he raises his hand and—there. Something cramps, knots up like a coil of wire in his back. He lifts his hand to his chest and can't move.

“Merritt,” he croaks. “Merritt. Wake up.”

Merritt wakes up. Seven minutes of pain later.

Of course, instead of help, Jack gets a lecture on karma. And he can't even put a pillow over his head to block it out.

Merritt finally, finally stops with the karma talk when Jack tells him to _shut up and help_ and hems and haws for a couple minutes. “It's not that I don't want to help you,” he says. “I do. I really do. But that bunk's not big enough for both of us, and my back can't take helping you down.”

Then he starts up with the karma lecture again.

“Please,” he manages when Merritt takes a break to breathe. “For the love of God. Call Daniel.”

“Relax, I texted him five minutes ago.”

Thank _fuck_.

“Just lie back, relax, think of England—or whatever country you want to think of. Wouldn't take you for an England man. Something warmer, right? South of the border. A, B—Brazil? Brazil. Brazil. Beautiful country. Excellent choice.”

Jack grunts. There's a small water stain to the left of the bed; from his spot, it looks kind of like a tribble in a bowler hat.

“Great swimwear.” Merritt's playing with his favorite deck. Jack can _hear_ the distinctive shuffling. Godammit. “Even for the gentlemen. And between you and me, I think you could really pull off a—”

“Oh my God.” Jack grinds his head into the pillow, and. Well. That's not the best idea. Ripples of pain chase each other across his back in fiery spasms. Jack makes a pained noise and swears a lot. “Seriously, man. Helping hand here.”

“Just wait for Daniel,” Merritt says. “He's small and spry. And you know he worked as a masseuse at a spa the summer he was nineteen? He'll fix you up, no sweat.”

If he squints his eyes a little, the water stain actually looks like a panda bear with an oversize head. “If he comes. He's barely gotten out of bed since Henley left.” Jack sighs. “Henley would know what to do.”

Merritt snorts.

“Oh, shut up”

There's the unmistakable noise of Merritt picking his hat up from the dresser and spinning it in his hands. “We don't need Henley.”

It's Jack's turn to snort.

“Right,” he says. “Because we're doing so well without her.”

Danny's spent the last six days in the same set of pajamas and hasn't stepped foot outside of his apartment. Merritt's visiting bars every night to hit on married women and sniping at anyone who rubs him the wrong way (everyone. Everyone rubs him the wrong way). Dylan, for his part, spends his days at the office and his nights at the office and his weekends shut up at home with files from his office. He says it's for his cover, that Cowan's been making a lot of noises about him failure to catch the Horsemen. Everyone knows it's bullshit, that Danny resents Henley's telling him she was leaving before anyone else.

That's not really a thing that ever gets mentioned, though.

“We're not going to leave,” Merritt says then. And, _damn_ but that was not what Jack was expecting. “I mean, hell, Henley left, sure, but she's not _gone_. The Horsemen aren't gone.”

“What,” Jack says. 

“Henley,” Merritt says. Slowly, like Jack's an idiot. “You. Us. Since I've got you here, a captive audience as it were, I figure it's time for a heart-to-heart. You're afraid that because Henley left, the rest of us are going to fall apart and leave too. Like the others left, before you met us. You're—”

“Don't.” Jack tries to turn his head to glare and can't. “Don't try your mentalism on me, man. I'm not worried about anything. What are you even—”

“It's all right.” Merritt moves, crosses his arms or pats his pocket or something that rustles the bright yellow t-shirt and novelty boxers he wears to bed. “There's nothing to be ashamed of. It's understandable, particularly given your personal history, that you—”

“Oh my God,” Jack mutters.

“Should tell you, right now, you don't need to worry about Atlas. He saw this coming, and he's just moping. Any day now, he's going to get out of bed, get a hideous haircut—he's the haircut after a breakup kind of guy, I can tell—and waltz through that door like nothing's ha—”

“Please, for the love of God, stop.”

“What I'd like to talk about, right now, is you. Your back. I believe this morning's pain is a wake-up call; it's only an extension of the anxiety you've been dealing with, all on your lonesome, even though Dylan and I—yes, and even Atlas—are here for y—”

“Hey!” Daniel's voice rings out through the warehouse. “I got your text. Anyone home?”

Merritt breaks off mid-sentence. “In the bedroom!”

“Thank God,” Jack says when Danny walks in.

“What's the emergency? What—what's Jack doing?”

“Help,” Jack says. “But first, make him shut up. _Please._ ”

“I resent that. Here I am, shedding a light on the hidden recesses of your soul, you ungrateful wretch, and this is all the thanks I get. For shame, Jack.”

“I've got a cramp. In my back. I can't get out of bed,” Jack says over him.

Danny drops his messenger bag. “What.”

“And I was just explaining to him that it's merely a psychosomatic injury, a function of his brain due to traumatic experiences he had as a child and adolescent, combined with the recent loss of someone he'd come to see as a family member, and–”

“You texted me there was an emergency because Jack can't get out of bed? Seriously?”

Merritt sniffs. “”You're young and spry. And you did that masseuse thing at that spa—ah, ah, don't try to deny it.”

“Un-fucking-believable,” Danny says.

He climbs up the ladder anyway.

“Thank you,” Jack says, with feeling.

Danny's face appears next to him like an angry little gremlin's. He curses under his breath and rolls Jack over onto his stomach, but his hands are gentle. “Where does it hurt?”

“Upper left. My neck and shoulder. Mostly.”

“Psy-cho-so-ma-tic,” Merritt sing-songs.

Jack groans.

Danny's fingers dig into the knotted muscle and kneads. It's equal parts painful, burning hell and sweet, sweet relief.

“It was the draft,” Jack mutters. It's hard to talk audibly with his face mashed into his pillow, but he manages. “From the aircon.”

“You sound like an eighty-year-old hypochondriac.”

“Met a lot of them at the spa, did ya?” Merritt makes a face—probably waggling his eyebrows—that makes Danny digs his fingers in hard. Jack groans again, though for considerably more painful reasons.

“Not to worry,” Merritt starts again as if he'd never been interrupted. “This is exactly what I was talking about. Now, Henley—”

“Jesus!” Jack grabs hold of the pillow case and twists it in his fingers. “Be gentle!”

“Henley's a free spirit. She felt trapped in here. Penned up like a cat in a carrier. Plus, we all knew she and Atlas were never going to work out, and once it ended it only became one more bar on the cage. She—”

“How's that?” Danny asks.

Jack pushes up from the pillow—and freezes halfway. “Right side. Just above my waist.”

“But I think the important thing,” Merritt says, “Is this moment. Right here, right now. You had an emergency, we helped.”

“This is not an emergency. And also, I helped.” Danny presses his palm whole over the the muscle just to the right of Jack's spine. “You did nothing.”

“I feel my role in this situation was in a more advisory capacity, Daniel. Don't interrupt. To continue. We came, we helped, we supported you in your time of need, much like we're supporting Daniel in his by pretending Henley hasn't e-mailed, because it's what we do. What we will continue doing. Isn't that right, Daniel?”

Danny grunts and does something with his thumbs. There's a sharp spike of pain, then a sudden, welcome feeling of loose warmth that spreads across Jack's lower back.

“Because nobody's going anywhere.” Merritt leans against the dresser, takes a deep breath, and, miraculously, shuts up.

“I hate all of you,” Jack says. He presses his face into his pillow. Danny sits back and smooths his t-shirt back down.

“All set,” Danny says. Taps his back and and slips down the ladder. Jack stretches, feels no pain, and breathes a deep, contented sigh.

Danny slouches out of the room but doesn't take his messenger bag. Jack hears him go into the bathroom and wash his hands. There's a long pause, then, as if he's staring at himself in the mirror or gazing off, deep in thought. Then a minute later comes the sound of the sink drawer being rifled through and Danny calls out, asking for a razor and if Merritt knows how to do a buzz cut.

Merritt sighs, mutters 'hideous' under his breath and throws one of his hats up at Jack.

“Make yourself useful,” he says as he heads out. “There's pancake batter in the fridge. Ask Dylan if he wants to come over.”

Jack waits in bed until the razor starts up before he rolls to the edge and pushes off, loose and limber.


End file.
